Bearing Witness to Totalitarianism

They warned him not to talk. When Maziar Bahari was finally freed after 118 days in an Iranian prison on phony espionage charges, he was instructed never to speak of what had happened in jail. If he told his story, his interrogator said, he would be hunted down. “We can put people in a bag no matter where in the world they are,” the interrogator said. “No one can escape from us.”

This week’s cover is Maziar’s declaration of independence from the threats of a regime that imprisoned and tortured him for months. As you would expect, it is a compelling narrative, told by a skilled journalist and filmmaker. But it is something else as well: a rare glimpse inside the mind and motives of a regime riven with internal rivalries and driven by nuclear ambitions.